List of Death Note Characters - Minor Characters - Taro Kagami

Taro Kagami (鏡 太郎, Kagami Tarō?) was the protagonist of the original Death Note pilot story, which differs greatly from the final series. While walking home from school one day, 13-year-old Taro Kagami finds the Death Note on the ground, and thinking it to be an ordinary journal, he writes down the names of people who had been bullying him. The next day, these bullies are reported dead, and Ryuk appears to Taro that night. Soon, the police get involved, and Kagami uses an eraser to revive the dead bullies. As the police interrogate the bullies, the bullies and the two police officers die; as it turns out, Ryuk's other note fell into one of Kagami's friends' hands. The police officers and the bullies are brought back to life again, and Kagami keeps one Death Note while the other is burned. At the end of the chapter, a 20-year-old Kagami is seen with Ryuk following him.

This version of the story is significantly more horror-based, and Death Note 13: How to Read describes the pilot chapter Ryuk as "really lazy" and "incompetent". Taro subsequently became the inspiration for the character of Teru Mikami; Mikami greatly resembles him, down to the flashbacks of him in his youth.